


Ragnor Isn't Dead

by NotEvenThat



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Brief Nose Breaking, Casual Drugs, Domestic Fluff, Family Fluff, Humor, M/M, Mundane Magnus Bane/Mundane Alec Lightwood, No Angst, Pranks, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Weddings, mundane AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 18:28:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12086832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotEvenThat/pseuds/NotEvenThat
Summary: It started as a joke. Every time Alec came around, Ragnor had just left. Every time Magnus tried to introduce them, something happened and Ragnor didn’t show. Then, casually, someone asked if Ragnor was even real. To which Raphael replied, “Ragnor? Ragnor died years ago.”Magnus's friends think it's funny to tell his boyfriend that Ragnor is dead. Magnus just wants to prove that he isn't.





	Ragnor Isn't Dead

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a joke between my friend and I about mundane Alec not thinking that any of Magnus's friends are real. Now, it's this.

It started as a joke. Every time that Alec came around, Ragnor had just left. Every time Magnus tried to introduce his best friend to his boyfriend, something happen and the former didn’t show. It was a joke; a normal, casual, harmless joke that Ragnor wasn’t real.

Until, of course, someone mentioned it around Raphael. To which, Raphael turned around and informed Alec with the stone cold seriousness that only Raphael can muster while destroying Magnus’s life, that's Ragnor had been dead for years now.

He hadn’t been, of course. Ragnor was very alive and Magnus saw him almost daily. In the beginning, it had been humous circumstance that Ragnor had never met Alec but after that day, it became unyielding determination, fueled only by Magnus’s friend’s cruel sense of humor.

Alexander and Magnus had only been dating for a few weeks but they had know each other for far longer and by now, their friend groups had completely integrated themselves. Simon was dating Alec’s sister and Raphael. Catarina and Isabelle hung out more and more everyday. Jace slept on Magnus’s couch every time he drank too much to go home.

So really, it was insane that none of their friends from Alec’s side had met Ragnor. More insane though, was that somehow Raphael managed to convince all of Magnus’s friends to go along with this.

In the beginning, Magnus didn’t even know that this was going on. Sure, he knew that everyone joked that Ragnor wasn’t real but Magnus had no clue that Raphael had convince Alec that Ragnor was _dead._ He also had no clue that Raphael had convinced everyone else to go along with it.

So, when he told Alec that he was hanging out with Ragnor for the day and Alec replied with pursed lips, pitiful eyes and an, “Okay.. Message me if you get lonely.” Magnus was confused. Then, moments like this kept happening. When Magnus was talking to Ragnor on the phone and he casually told Alec who he was talking to, Alec froze in the doorway, his look half between concern and sadness. When Magnus told Alec that he must have left his wallet in Ragnor car, his boyfriend had said, “Or maybe the cab?..”

They were all hanging out in Magnus’s apartment when Magnus finally realized what happened. He had pulled out his phone and said out loud that he was going to text Ragnor and ask where he was, when Raphael looked up at him from the couch and frowned, saying softly, like he only wanted Magnus to hear him but still conveniently speaking loud enough for everyone to hear him, “Don’t do this tonight, Magnus.”

Everyone looked over at him. Simon, who had met Ragnor before and obviously knew what was happening, frowned from his place under Raphael’s arm. Alec froze where he was putting together a snack platter and looked up, staring at Magnus like he was expecting him to have a break down. Catarina’s mouth twitched in a smile but she had the humility to at least look more sorry for Magnus than Tessa did. Isabelle, Jace, Clary: Everyone looked up at him and beyond all of the cautious pity, Magnus was the only one who could see Raphael smirking.

“You didn’t.” Magnus said it as a statement, not a question. He knew what had happened. Without Raphael even explaining it to him, he knew. Everything fell into place. Every single time he spoke of Ragnor and Alec looked like he wanted to pull Magnus into his arms and comfort him. Every single time he invited Ragnor someplace and Ragnor had asked him who would be there before agreeing. Every time he had offhandedly mentioned that something was Ragnor’s and everyone had suddenly treated the object like it was gold.

Raphael had told them that he was dead.

Magnus and Raphael stared at each other for a long moment and then Magnus turned to face Alec, his hands clamping on the counter before him in rage, “Rangor isn’t dead!” Magnus snapped the phrase at him and Alec froze before slowly putting the knife in his hands down and taking a cautious step toward Magnus. His gaze flickering towards Raphael, who had also stood. “You know that Ragnor isn’t dead. I talk about him all the time. Raphael is a fucking liar and he thinks he’s funny.”

Magnus felt Raphael come up behind him and then a moment later, his hand fell across Magnus’s back, gently but surely pulling Magnus’s towards the balcony. His voice was gentle in Magnus’s ear but Magnus could hear the enjoyment behind it, “Let’s go outside, Magnus.”

Magnus turned to stare at him incredibly. He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe that Raphael had actually told his boyfriend and the rest of his friends that Magnus’s best friend was dead. He couldn’t believe that everyone else had gone along with it. He couldn’t believe the effort that they must have had to put in to never let Ragnor meet anyone who didn’t know and that was only the beginning.

 

After that, there were many moments in which Ragnor almost met Alec. Times when Alec would arrive just a couple minutes too late to Magnus’s house. Times when Ragnor would leave the party just a half an hour before Alec finally showed up. Once, Alec had even seen Magnus out to eat with Ragnor but he didn’t interrupt them because he thought that it must have been something important and he didn’t believe Magnus when he told him who he was out with.

The whole time, none of his friends would break. The only person who ever came close to it was Simon. He would open his mouth and casually mention Ragnor but with a quick glare from Raphael or Tessa, he’d throw in a, ‘you know, back when he was..’ Simon never said that Ragnor was dead. He never actually lied but he implied it enough that he didn’t help Magnus’s case either.

Once, Alec had even called while Ragnor was over and Magnus thought that he had it, _finally._ He answered the phone. He didn’t say Alec’s name. He greeted him and then called casually over his shoulder, “Ragnor, Raphael want to know if we can go out to dinner.”

Ragnor looked up from the controller in his hand and said loudly, obviously intending for Raphael to be able to hear his response, “Why can’t we go out to lunch? See some sun, you fucking vampire.”

Ragnor met Magnus’s eyes for a split second and then all hell broke loose. Ragnor realized what Magnus had done and he threw himself up from the couch, not saying anything, not speaking but obviously ready to do _something,_ if he came up with anything to do. Magnus started yelling, loud and excited into the phone, “You heard him, right?! Alexander! That was Ragnor, you heard him right?”

Air brushed past the receiver as Alec moved and then his voice was there, confusion evident in his tone, “What? Magnus? Babe, what happened?”

Ragnor moved across the room and his hand came out, trying to catch the phone in Magnus’s hands. “That was Ragnor! Alec, that was Ragnor!” The phone dropped from Magnus’s hands but Magnus’s attention had already shifted from the device to the man in front of him. “What the fuck, Ragnor!” His words were loud and Magnus was sure that his neighbors could hear them from across the hall. “It’s not funny anymore!”

Ragnor dove and snatched Magnus’s phone off the ground, ending the phone call before looking up at Magnus, a slow grin stretching across his face, “It’s a little bit funny.”

 

After that, Magnus gave up. He didn't stop talking about Ragnor but he stopped trying to get Alec to meet him. He didn’t care anymore (he cared a lot). Soon, this joke would stop being funny or they’d slip up and Ragnor would show up while Alec was there. Really, it wasn’t sustainable. Something would happen. Something would give. No matter how clever his friends were, Alec’s group had become so close to Magnus’s that something was going to happen and they were going to know that Ragnor was alive. So, Magnus stopped trying.

Then, for a week nothing happened. He could tell that Raphael and Ragnor found their game less fun when Magnus wasn’t obsessing over it every moment. He thought that by the end of the week, they’d get bored of it and that would be the end.

He was wrong. Apparently, Magnus’s lack of reaction only lead them to take it a step farther.

Alec and Magnus came home from their date and dropped all of their groceries onto the counter in Magnus’s apartment. It's was late at night and Magnus wanted nothing more than to take his makeup off and curl up on the couch with his boyfriend. So, he left Alec in the kitchen and went into the bathroom to get ready for the night, leaving his boyfriend to put everything away.

It was twenty minutes before Magnus came back out and when he did, he almost missed what Alec was looking at. Alec was standing at the counter with the empty grocery bags all around around him, peering down at a small piece of paper. When he heard Magnus coming out of the bathroom, he dropped it and turned, starting to casually pick up all of the bags, like he hadn't been looking at anything.

Which was… weird. Magnus walked into the kitchen and stared for a moment before asking cautiously, “What was that?”

Alec turned to look at him, his eyes a bit wide as he shook his head, “No. I was just looking at..” Alec trailed off and looked down at the table.

Slowly, Magnus walked forward and plucked the piece of paper off the table to look down at it. Then.. His hands clamped on the piece of paper and for a few moment, Magnus swore that he saw red. There, cut into a little laminated card, was an obituary that read, _“Ragnor Fell, twenty one, passed away on October 18th, 2002 after a tragic car accident. His friends will miss him dearly but none more than his best friend, Magnus Bane, who was the sole survivor of the accident on Sunday night.”_

Magnus could feel Alec staring at him. He could feel the silence hanging around them, heavy and dense but it took a few moments for Magnus to even register his own anger. Telling everyone that Ragnor was dead was one thing. Convincing Magnus’s boyfriend that Ragnor was dead was.. Funny, in the right light but creating a fake obituary and putting it in Magnus’s apartment, in the only place where they knew that Alec would find it and Magnus would not because he sure as hell didn’t use his kitchen, was too far.

It was an insane amount too far. It was earth shatteringly too far. It was on a whole other level to this casual annoyance that it had been before and of course, they had to make it fucking tragic. Ragnor couldn’t have passed away from heart failure or some other peaceful incident, no, of fucking course, Ragnor had to die in a car accident when Magnus was also in the car.

Slowly, Magnus turned to look at Alec and spoke softly, “I’m going onto the porch to make a call.” Magnus thought that Alec nodded but he didn’t register it. He didn't register anything but the paper clamped in his hand and his phone burning a hole in his pocket.

He dialed Ragnor’s phone number without blinking and Ragnor answered the phone almost instantly. “Good evening, Magnus.” In the background, Magnus could heal Raphael speaking. He could hear the TV playing whatever game he was sure they were enjoying.

No one spoke for a long moment. They were waiting for Magnus to start yelling, for Magnus to start screaming at them.

Magnus turned to look inside. He could see Alec standing in the kitchen, turning to look at Magnus and then pretending that he hadn’t been. Magnus took a deep breath and then ended the call before walking back inside and walking up to his boyfriend, pressing him into the counter and pulling their lips together in one fluid motion.

Fuck his friends.

 

Alec came so ridiculously close to meeting Ragnor once that Magnus was still amazed that the whole scheme hadn’t ended right there. Ragnor and Magnus were in his apartment, smoking insane amounts of weed and playing Mario Kart for hours on end, when there was a knock at Magnus’s door and Alec’s voice calling out, “Magnus? I brought chinese food?”

Ragnor and Magnus locked eyes. There was only one way out of Magnus’s apartment and it was the door that Alec was standing in front of. For a few still moments, nothing happened and then Magnus dove for the door and Ragnor darted up, sprinting past Magnus into the hallway.

Magnus threw the front door open and was met with the sight of his boyfriend standing there, holding a chinese bag of take out and looking into Magnus’s apartment with obvious confusion. After a few seconds, he asked slowly, “You’re smoking alone?”

Magnus took the bag from Alec’s hands and pulled him inside, practically tugging Alec into the apartment until he could slam the door behind him and lock it. “No, I’m smoking with Ragnor.”

Alec’s eyes went wide for a moment and Magnus saw his hand twitch at his side, like he wanted to pull his phone out and call someone. “Magnus..” His voice was soft and caring but they were too close for Magnus to even bothering looking over at Alec. Ragnor was here somewhere. He was here in Magnus’s apartment and Alec was going to meet him, whether or not Ragnor wanted him too.

Magnus looked to Alec and pushed him backwards lightly, yelling, “Stay by the door.” Before turning and running through the rest of his apartment. His apartment wasn’t big. He had a bedroom, a bathroom, a living room and a kitchen. Magnus could count on his hand the number of places that Ragnor could be hiding. He was going to find him. He was going to drag him into the kitchen and Alec was finally going to meet him.

Magnus threw his closet door open and kicked his way through his clothes until he was sure that Ragnor wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the bathroom. He wasn’t hiding in the closet in the hallway. Magnus tore through his apartment for a frantic ten minutes and then, he heard someone pounding on his front door and Magnus’s heart sank.

Alec had called Raphael. He knew that he had. Every time something like this happened, Alec always offered to call him and now, he had. Raphael was going to do something. He was going to get Ragnor out or he was going to send Alec home and that would be the end of it.

Magnus heard the front door open and he heard Raphael's voice, smooth and calm as he greeted Alec. Then, he was standing there in the hallway, his smile pulling into a grin as he spoke, “Magnus.. You’re scaring Alec.”

Magnus’s mind raced through the places that Ragnor could have been. He wasn’t in Magnus’s bedroom. He wasn’t in any of the closets. He wasn’t in the bathroom.

Raphael took a step towards him and Magnus realized all too suddenly where Ragnor was. There was a crawl space in Magnus’s bedroom, a crevasse that led to the space between Magnus’s wall and the apartment next to his. It was the only place that he could have been. It was the only space left in Magnus’s apartment that Ragnor could have possibly been hiding.

Magnus turned and ran into his bedroom. He could hear Raphael’s footsteps following slowly behind him, following him at a casual pace with absolutely no sense of urgency. “Magnus.. You’ve been smoking. I know that you think about him when you get high.” Magnus sprinted over to the panel on his wall that slid open to the space behind his wall and instantly, Raphael's spoke, “You know that he’s not in there, Magnus.”

Instantly, Magnus knew that it was true. Ragnor had to have texted Raphael and told him where he was hiding. Raphael wouldn’t have spoke so calmly if there was any chance that Ragnor was really hiding there but Magnus pulled the panel out and looked inside anyway, feeling absolutely no surprise when it was empty.

Ragnor must have snuck out. Somehow, in the moments since Raphael had gotten there and Alec had stepped away from the door, he must have left. Magnus stood up.

Raphael smirked and then nodded his head towards the door, “Come on, Magnus. Your boyfriend brought food.”

 

Hours later, when Alec was curled against Magnus’s neck fast asleep and Raphael was sprawled out on Magnus’s arm chair, knocked out, Magnus saw something in his kitchen move. He saw his fridge open and for a few moments and his high brain jumped to life, struggling to understand what he was seeing and then he realized who it was. He didn’t move. He didn’t push Alec awake. He didn’t try to get anyone's attention. He just watched and then, a moment later, when Ragnor walked into the living room holding a container of noodles that Magnus had been eating earlier, Magnus didn’t even twitch.

Ragnor lifted his fork and took a bite, his eyes not moving away from Magnus as he ate. Slowly, Magnus opened his mouth and he whispered, “I fucking hate you.” Over and over again until Ragnor finally turned towards the door and whispered back, “I know. I’ll call you tomorrow.” Before walking through the door and leaving.

The second the door slammed closed, Alec sighed against Magnus’s neck and lifted his head, groggily asking, “What was that?”

Sighing, Magnus kissed his head. “Go back to sleep, Alec.”

 

As the weeks went on, Raphael, Alec and Magnus ended up hanging out together more and more. Magnus wished that Ragnor could have joined them but apparently the joke was still humorous enough to warrant incinerating Magnus’s time with his best friend. In the moment’s between work and adult responsibilities, they’d all go out to eat and then walk back through the graveyard in town to end up behind Magnus’s apartment.

Today, as they were cutting through the graveyard, Raphael turned and nodded his head towards the path that lead deeper and deeper into the graveyard and farther away from Magnus’s apartment building saying, “Lets walk down here.”

Magnus looked up at Raphael confused but didn’t think twice about it. Alec’s hand was warm against his, he had a styrofoam cup in his hand; He didn’t mind walking a little bit farther.

They made their way down the path and around the slow bend in the dirt road. Alec was talking about his day at work and aimlessly toying with Magnus’s rings on his hand. Raphael was groaning and complaining about the clients he’d met with that day, then he stopped in the road and walked a couple of feet off the path into the grass where the gravestones laid.

Alec breath caught next to him but it took a pathetically long moment for Magnus to look up and realize what they were looking at. Raphael stopped in front of one of the gravestones and his mouth twisted into a bittersweet smile as he reached out and touched it.

Alec was frozen a half step behind him, his hand clenched nervously on Magnus's.

There was a gleaming white stone, obviously newly laid out compared to the rest of the stones who were dull and grown over with moss. The name was etched into the rock, sticking out at Magnus like it was mocking him.

_“Ragnor Fell 1984-2002.”_

That was the moment that Magnus snapped. Magnus pulled his hand away and turned to face Raphael, barely even registering it as Alec’s hand fell from his and his boyfriend took a startled step backwards. There was a quiet moment in which Raphael stared at him, waiting expectantly for Magnus’s reaction. Magnus knew that he should just walk away and not encourage it. He knew that he should just leave. He knew that if he did something, it would only reward them for the insane amount of effort they had put into this but Magnus couldn’t help himself.

There were very few moments in Magnus’s life that he had ever completely lost control. One of them was after his mother had killed herself and another one of them was that moment, in which Magnus pulled his hand back punched Raphael as hard as he could.

Blood shot from his nose instantly and Magnus heard as Alec darted forward, pulling him, yelling something. Blood ran from Magnus’s knuckles and fell into the glass below him. Raphael fell backwards, half landing on the fake gravestone that they had place there, cupping his obviously broken nose as blood streamed out of it onto the stone and the ground below him.

Magnus didn’t even say anything. He didn’t wait. He didn’t look to see if Alec was following him. He just turned around and walked through the graveyard, his hands clenched into fists at his side.

 

Magnus took no part in the incident that made the truth finally come out. He only learned what had happened afterwards, from multiple different people who described it to him. In Raphael's words, “Simon was too fucking soft.” Isabelle failed to explain it to him but kept saying in a quiet awed voice, “I tried to convince Alec to make you an appointment with a therapist so many times..” Alexander himself said nothing but, “I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you,” over and over again.

According to Tessa, who was the only person that actually explained to him what happened in detail (after he’d calmed down from the excitement and sense of victory that he felt upon initially realizing that Alec believed him), Alec had thought that Magnus was cheating on him. Magnus wasn’t, of course. He never would.

But apparently, someone had seen Magnus out with Ragnor, ‘hanging off him’ in the words of Alec’s coworker and when Alec had asked who Magnus had been with that day, Magnus had replied, “Rangor.” Which, was completely true but not from Alec’s perspective.

So, when Alec had been left alone with all of their friends, he had said that he thought Magnus was cheating on him and explained why.

Instantly, Raphael had jumped in and tried to make something up, tried to defuse the situation without giving away the scheme that had now gone on for a full month. It hadn’t worked though because while Raphael was quick witted, there wasn’t much to say other than the truth.

Simon was the one who cracked. Raphael tried to stop him, he kept saying that they’d get out of it and fix it but Simon had shaken his head and replied, “He thinks Magnus is cheating on him guys.. Too far. The gravestone was probably also too far. You guys paid like fifteen grand for that thing.”

The moments that followed were filled by Simon, Tessa, Catarina and begrudgingly, Raphael, informing everyone that Ragnor was not in fact dead but very alive and then explaining every single scenario in which they had made Magnus out to be insane: They explained how they snuck the obituary into Magnus’s apartment when they knew that both of them would be out. They explained where Ragnor had hidden that time that Alec had shown up at Magnus’s apartment. They explained how they bought the gravestone a week after the prank started and lastly: They explained to Alec how Ragnor and Magnus had met each other when they were seven years old and they had both been sent to the same foster home. They explained how Ragnor’s family had been insanely rich and how when he turned eighteen and gained access to all of that money, Magnus and him left and spent the next seven years traveling together, getting banned from Peru and being pirates. Lastly, they explained how if Ragnor really had been dead, there wouldn’t be enough of Magnus left to be a person. Which, Magnus refuted but knew secretly for it to be true. 

 

Alexander and Ragnor met each other a couple of days later. The second that the illusion had dropped, Ragnor was there. He claimed that he forgot his jacket in Magnus’s apartment (which, he had) but they both knew that Ragnor had just missed him and he missed coming over whenever and not checking that Alexander wasn’t going to be there.

The scheme that they had set for themselves took an insane amount of effort and it also meant that Ragnor and Magnus had spent far less time together than they were use too.

When Alec came home that night to find Magnus and Ragnor curled together in bed, like two little boys hiding from the world, he simply closed the door again and retreated to the kitchen to make dinner. No one mentioned it later, when they finally came out.

 

“Five years ago, the rest of Magnus’s friends and I played a prank on him.” Ragnor stood next to Magnus, his glass of champagne held high as he spoke into the microphone, “At the time, Alexander and him had just started dating and..” Ragnor looked down at Alec and pursed his lips with an apologetic look, “None of us thought that they were going to last.”

“It wasn’t that anything was wrong with Alec but Magnus dated a lot of people. We certainly had no clue that we would be gathered here today..” Ragnor trailed off and then looked up at the crowd around them, “So, we thought that it would be funny to convince Alec and the rest of his family that I was dead.” Ragnor paused as the rest of the room laughed and stared at him astounded by the absurdity of that statement.

Ragnor's mouth twisted into a smile. “We broke into Magnus’s house and left a fake obituary where Alec would find it. We actually bought a fake gravestone and when Raphael brought Magnus and Alec to see it, Magnus broke his nose.” He paused again, allowing the room to laugh before he continued.

“Had we known that Alec would stick around we perhaps would have rethought our sense of humor but alas, we did not and now,” Ragnor looked down for a moment, his voice catching on a more sincere note of tenderness. When he looked back up, he caught Magnus’s eyes and for a few moments, it almost looked as if he’d start crying. “We’re gathered here today to celebrate the joining of my best friend, my only family and _undoubtedly_ his soulmate.” Ragnor’s breath ran out of him and he took a deep breath for continuing, “Magnus..” He shook his head softly, “I have never been more happy than I am today to _not_ really be dead.”

 

Hours later, the elegant wedding had transformed into a party where everyone in attendance was at least a little bit drunk. Magnus was somewhere far beyond them, spinning Isabelle around in lopsided, drunken spins as they laughed and whispered together. Alec was slumped over, his golden suit rumpled from the hours they’d spent in the hall.

Ragnor was by his side, apparently far less drunk than everyone else in attendance. Alec slumped over, falling gently against Ragnor’s side as he looked up at him. His black hair was tousled and his cheeks were flushed from the alcohol but his voice was clear and honest as he spoke, “Ragnor.. I’m happy that you weren’t really dead.”

Ragnor laughed as he reached out, gently wrapping his arms around Alec’s shoulder, holding him up, “Yeah? You know, I’m happy that I wasn’t too.”

**Author's Note:**

> You know, I finished writing this and I thought to myself, 'this isn't the best thing that I've written. I could do so much better,' but.. do I really want to put more effort into this weird one shot probably based of my denial of Ragnor's death? The answer is no, apparently.


End file.
